Editing Mendelian inheritance (section)

== Inheritance tools ==

=== Punnett Squares ===
Punnett Squares are a well known genetics tool that was created by an English geneticist, Reginald Punnett, which can visually demonstrate all the possible genotypes that an offspring can receive, given the genotypes of their parents.<ref name="palomar">{{Cite web |title=Basic Principles of Genetics: Probability of Inheritance |url=https://www.palomar.edu/anthro/mendel/mendel_2.htm |access-date=2024-03-23 |website=www.palomar.edu}}</ref><ref name="Churchill-1974">{{Cite journal |last=Churchill |first=Frederick B. |date=1974 |title=William Johannsen and the Genotype Concept |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4330602 |journal=Journal of the History of Biology |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=5–30 |doi=10.1007/BF00179291 |jstor=4330602 |pmid=11610096 |issn=0022-5010|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Edwards-2012">{{Cite journal |last=Edwards |first=A. W. F. |date=2012-03-01 |title=Punnett's square |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369848611001373 |journal=Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences |series=Data-Driven Research in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=219–224 |doi=10.1016/j.shpsc.2011.11.011 |pmid=22326091 |issn=1369-8486|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Each parent carries two alleles, which can be shown on the top and the side of the chart, and each contribute one of them towards reproduction at a time. Each of the squares in the middle demonstrates the number of times each pairing of parental alleles could combine to make potential offspring. Using probabilities, one can then determine which genotypes the parents can create, and at what frequencies they can be created.<ref name="palomar" /><ref name="Edwards-2012" />

For example, if two parents both have a heterozygous genotype, then there would be a 50% chance for their offspring to have the same genotype, and a 50% chance they would have a homozygous genotype. Since they could possibly contribute two identical alleles, the 50% would be halved to 25% to account for each type of homozygote, whether this was a homozygous dominant genotype, or a homozygous recessive genotype.<ref name="palomar" /><ref name="Churchill-1974" /><ref name="Edwards-2012" />

=== Pedigrees ===
Pedigrees are visual tree like representations that demonstrate exactly how alleles are being passed from past generations to future ones.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Miller |first=Christine |title=Human biology |date=2020 |publisher=Thompson Rivers University |chapter=5.13 Mendelian Inheritance |chapter-url=https://humanbiology.pressbooks.tru.ca/chapter/5-12-mendelian-inheritance/}}</ref> They also provide a diagram displaying each individual that carries a desired allele, and exactly which side of inheritance it was received from, whether it was from their mother's side or their father's side.<ref name=":0" /> Pedigrees can also be used to aid researchers in determining the inheritance pattern for the desired allele, because they share information such as the gender of all individuals, the phenotype, a predicted genotype, the potential sources for the alleles, and also based its history, how it could continue to spread in the future generations to come. By using pedigrees, scientists have been able to find ways to control the flow of alleles over time, so that alleles that act problematic can be resolved upon discovery.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Galla |first1=Stephanie J. |last2=Brown |first2=Liz |last3=Couch-Lewis (Ngāi Tahu: Te Hapū o Ngāti Wheke, Ngāti Waewae) |first3=Yvette |last4=Cubrinovska |first4=Ilina |last5=Eason |first5=Daryl |last6=Gooley |first6=Rebecca M. |last7=Hamilton |first7=Jill A. |last8=Heath |first8=Julie A. |last9=Hauser |first9=Samantha S. |date=January 2022 |title=The relevance of pedigrees in the conservation genomics era |journal=Molecular Ecology |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=41–54 |doi=10.1111/mec.16192 |pmid=34553796 |pmc=9298073 |bibcode=2022MolEc..31...41G }}</ref>